This was an interesting deal, on which, with Eszter at the helm, we got a very decent result:
Love All, Dealer WestSouth (Dummy) AJ
842
Q7432
Q94
King ledNorth 74
AQJ10765
K986
-
BiddingWest North East SouthNo 1
2
2
3
4
All Pass
Eszter ruffed the opening lead in hand and scored immediately by dropping East's singleton King of Hearts. The
Queen followed, on which East discarded a small Spade. Now what?
There is considerable potential for trying to endplay
East here. Ideally you want
Opps to open up the Diamonds for you. East surely started with
AK and cannot continue attacking the suit without creating a Club trick for you. If you play
AJ and can persuade East to win the second Spade trick, then they will be endplayed and possibly persuaded to open up the Diamonds for you.
As the cards lie that line you probably have worked quite nicely, since West started with
Q9863 and probably would (and later on,
did) duck the Jack rather than covering it with the Queen. I thought Eszter had found that line when she crossed to the
Ace at trick 4, but then she ruffed a Club before exiting with a Spade towards the Jack. Ruffing a Club first is a mistake, I feel, because Opps already know North was void in Clubs, so it's not achieving anything and, what's more, gives up the threat which prevents East from continuing Clubs. Now East, winning the second Spade with the King, had an easy exit with the
Ace.
Eszter recovered well, though: instead of ruffing the
Ace, she discarded a Diamond from hand and now East (holding
J10x)
was well and truly endplayed to either open up the Diamonds (which West would win with their singleton Ace) or to give Declarer a ruff 'n' discard in one of the Black suits, which would allow Dummy to ruff and Declarer to shorten their Diamonds down to
K9.
Taking unnecessary ruffs can be counter-productive, as here when the second Club ruff effectively removed the threat against East. Worth noting, however, that playing Ace and another Spade wins even when
West wins the second Spade. If they return a small Club, Declarer simply
discards a Diamond from hand rather than ruffing and now, whoever has the
Ace, another Diamond will eventually go away on the
Queen.
10 tricks in 4
was surprisingly worth nearly 9 IMPs, because lots of NS Pairs were being pushed to the 5 or even the 6-level and going off. In 5
you pretty much
have to drop the
King offside
and attack the Diamonds from Dummy (
and have the foresight to unblock the
8 or 9 under the Ace rather than playing the 6).